Tío Juan and His Magical Dirt
by justabunchofmuggles
Summary: Tío Juan has never understood or fit in with Americans in this new world. But all it takes is one blast from the past for everything to change once again.


Tío Juan and His Magical Dirt

Mainly about Tío Juan and Gonzalo

 ***Author's Note- we were both very annoyed with Gonzalo, so we antagonized him a little.**

Once upon a time, there was an old man named Tío Juan. Tío Juan, who was originally from India, was then residing in Ohio, an American state. However, old Tío Juan did not speak English, which resulted in an estrangement from the rest of the city and its inhabitants.

Tío Juan lived with his niece, her husband, and their son Gonzalo. Gonzalo was a judgemental boy who looked after Tío Juan after school. Tío Juan didn't like this arrangement, and didn't think Gonzalo did either, so one day, he saw his opportunity,. He slipped away from his niece's apartment and into the fresh Cleveland air, relishing the sight of the cloudless blue sky and the lively city sounds- the cars, the shoppers down the street at the market, the air conditioners whirring outside the apartment buildings.

Well, maybe city air wasn't that clean, and the shoppers were arguing, and the poor air conditioners were barely working, but it was better than the stifling apartment. The inside of the apartments were filled with stagnant, hot air.

As Tío Juan journeyed along, he noticed a little Vietnamese girl crouching in the dirt in an alley. She was trickling a stream of water from a canteen over a patch of dirt. He crept a little closer, watching her. He was intrigued. She looked around nervously, as though afraid of being watched. She stood, brushed the dirt from her knees, and scurried away, out of the side alley.

Tío Juan simply stood there, amazed. He hadn't seen anyone doing something like _that_ in so very long… but how could he be sure? He stayed, staring at the little patch.

As he stared, an old woman with pure-white hair hobbled down a set of back stairs. She leaned heavily on a cane and her progress was slow, but her eyes were bright and determined. Surely enough, she made it over to the very patch the little girl had been crouching. She poked at the dirt with the cane, digging. Tío Juan wanted desperately to call out for her to stop, but the words would not come. Not in English. Eventually, up came the seeds, six of them, two with young roots. The woman sucked in a quick breath as she examined the seedlings, and immediately crouched down and set to burying the seeds again. Her job wasn't as neat as the girl's, but it was sufficient. She took another moment to stand, still using the cane. Then, she slowly made her way back up the stairs, and all was silent again. Tío Juan tried to go back home, but he got sidetracked when he saw a woman in a beauty parlor with a gigantic contraption over her head. He wondered if she was stuck.

A pair of footsteps came running up behind him. Juan turned, and it was Gonzalo.

"Where have you been?" Gonzalo asked angrily, in English. Tío Juan didn't understand. If people spoke slowly, he could understand them. But Gonzalo was speaking rapidly, and he was incoherent to poor Tío Juan.

Juan tried to explain what had happened, using the only language he knew, but he sounded as alien to Gonzalo as though he was from another planet. Gonzalo just shook his head, mouth set in a tight line, and after looking around for a couple seconds, grasped Tío Juan's hand and led him home.

%%%

The next day, Tío Juan didn't bother to wait for Gonzalo. This time he wouldn't get sidetracked by that beauty parlor. He knew exactly where he was going. The old man darted out the door. He was desperate to get back to that little gardening lot, to see it again.

Finally, Tío Juan rounded the last corner and came upon the lot This time, the Vietnamese girl was gone. Instead, she was replaced by a light-skinned man, a straw hat falling down his brow. This man too was digging, but he was planting a tad more than merely six beans. The man watered the freshly planted seeds and stood, wiping a sheen of sweat from his forehead. He looked to where Tío Juan was standing.

"Hey," the man called out, "what're you doing?"

These words were spoken slowly enough for Tío Juan to understand. The man leaned on his shovel, watching Tío Juan. Juan, not knowing what to do, pointed to the shovel and smiled. Then he pointed to the damp patch and made a digging motion.

Once again, footsteps rang out behind him. It was Gonzalo, who gripped Tío Juan's wrist and gently pulled him from the garden back to their apartment. The man shrugged and turned around, returning to his garden. The last Tío Juan saw of him was his straw hat.

%%%

Once back at their dingy apartment, Tío Juan went straight to his niece, Andrea, the only one in this country that spoke the same language as Tío Juan. He chattered excitedly about the garden he had discovered. It had been back in Guatemala, before Andrea had gone off and begun a family, and then convinced him to move with them to America. He had tended to an extraordinarily large and beautiful garden that was owned by a wealthy English couple, Mary and Dickon, who had treated him like family. He still missed the couple to that day, wishing he could see their kind smiles again. He wondered who had replaced him.

That garden was Tío Juan's greatest pride and joy, for he had never had a child of his own. Tío Juan had grown everything from daisies to pumpkins. Andrea began to get excited too, for though she had never quite shared the love of gardening, she had loved when her uncle had brought her family to the garden and let them play, popping freshly harvested berries in their juice-stained mouths.

After a lengthy reminiscent session with his niece, Tío Juan began wandering aimlessly around the apartment, lost in his memories. The garden, his long-ago childhood, life in Guatemala. The longer he thought, the more engrossed he became, and before he knew it, he was asleep.

%%%

When the sun came up, Tío Juan was still awake. Andrea came into his room, bleary eyed but already dressed for work, and handed him four small packets of seeds and a trowel. "I thought you might want these," she told him in his native tongue, "But you _MUST_ wait for Gonzalo to get home. I don't want you to get lost, Tío."

Alight with excitement, Tío Juan nodded his head to show he understood. "I understand, Andrea," he said, smiling a little. "When did you get so bossy, my niece?"

Andrea mock frowned. "You heard me, old man."

"Old man?" Tío Juan threw up his hands in the air. "There is no respect in this America! Cleveland least of all!" Back at home, when he was a child, being rude to your higher-ups and elders earned you a harsh beating. Gonzalo could take a lesson or two from his parents, and possibly Andrea as well; after all, she had received the same discipline. Not ever to Tío Juan, of course, but to all others she had.

Andrea finally smiled. "You can go, Tío. But be home by dark, and don't get lost, you hear me?"

"Yes, ma'am," Tío Juan responded, saluting her with a straight face. Andrea narrowed her smiling brown eyes at him and bustled out of the bedroom, once again leaving Tío Juan to his own thoughts.

A garden! Once again, a garden! Something to take care of once more, instead of being treated like a soft-headed baby. Something he was an expert in once more. Now, Gonzalo, who was always giving him frowns and disapproving glances, would see how the world really was. He couldn't wait for the plants to sprout so he could show Andrea, remind her of all the times they'd picniced at the garden he tended. The best of memories, those were, the best of memories.

%%%

The next day, Tío Juan's knees were jiggling up and down as he waited for the slow-walking Gonzalo to arrive home from school so he could leave for the garden. He heard the door open and shut, and his great-nephew call out, "Tío Juan? Where are you?" In English, of course.

Tío Juan clutched his seed packets as tightly as he could without damaging the life within. "Hello," he called back in his native tongue. "I am here, you disrespectful boy." It was his game, to insult Gonzalo without him ever knowing. When Andrea wasn't around, of course.

Gonzalo stopped in the living room and shrugged his backpack off his shoulders. "Last days of school are so unnecessary," the boy grumbled under his breath. "If all we do is play games, what's the point?"

Tío Juan, who had only heard and understood the words "days" "school" and "play", disregarded his statements. "Let us go!" he chirped in his native tongue, taking his supplies and starting for the door. He heard Gonzalo groan from behind him, and felt his face darken. Just because he didn't understand English didn't mean he was dumb. He swept from the apartment so fast that Gonzalo had to run to catch up. "Tío Juan! Wait!" the boy cried. Tío Juan slowed his pace a hair, and Gonzalo came up to his side, panting heavily. "You're… fast… for… an… old… man," Gonzalo wheezed. Tío Juan, who had understood every word, chose to ignore that statement. Maybe someday, the boy would learn. Someday. Until then, he would just talk to Andrea about it.

Once he had reached the garden, Tío Juan took his time choosing the perfect plot of land. He wanted somewhere that would never get too sunny, but not always be in the shade. Finally, Tío Juan plopped down underneath a beautiful oak tree and began digging. Of course, the ever ungrateful Gonzalo just sat down, looking all around and not doing anything, occasionally inspecting a piece of interesting-looking trash.

Sifting through his seed packets, Juan settled on the very first thing he would plant; a packet labeled with an English word he couldn't read, but showed a picture of a radiant magenta flower. It reminded him that the very shade had once been his long-dead sister's favorite color. She had loved his field of marigolds back home, before she got the tumor sickness.

Carefully packing those seeds into the dirt, Tío Juan found himself humming, finally in his element amongst all these strange American cultures.

The man felt more alive than he ever had before, and the dirt seemed to vibrate along to the song, providing a beat. The small sprouts surrounding him appeared to sway back and forth to the rhythm, and when Tío Juan looked up, he realized they actually were! Tío Juan looked at his hands, expecting them to be grubby and earth-soiled, but they were as clean as though they had just taken a bath.

Wait… he had just planted the seeds moments ago! How were they already aboveground?

Tío Juan turned to Gonzalo, who was dumbstruck by the way the whole lot was giving Tío Juan their own performance. "Isn't this amazing?" Tío Juan cried to Gonzalo, "I always knew that gardens had magic!"

Gonzalo responded happily, "I love this! I feel… awake!" All of a sudden, a confused look took over Gonzalo's features. "Tío… I understood you! I heard it as clearly as though you were speaking in Spanish!"

Juan's mouth dropped open. "And I! I can understand you too!"

Tears filled Gonzalo's eyes and he ran to his great-uncle, wrapping his soft arms around him. "Oh, Tío Juan, I've spent all this time thinking you were a crazy old fool. This… this _magic dirt_ of yours is making me realize what I've done. Tío, I love you so much! I'm so sorry I never tried to understand you and treated you so poorly! I regret so much!" Gonzalo and Tío Juan sank to their knees, clasped together.

"I forgive you, Gonzalo! I forgive you a thousand times!" Juan cried, "I should have loved you unconditionally; you are my only niece's only son, and I have never treated you with the respect I should have. I love you too."

Around the reunited, the plants swayed in a satisfied manner. Young buds had already sprouted on Tío Juan's plants, and when he looked around, the Vietnamese girl's and the pale man's crops had grown, too. He now saw that the girl had been growing beans, and the man some large, crunchy-looking carrots. The trash in the abandoned alley had all but disappeared into the air, and the plant's rhythim increased. Tío Juan and Gonzalo turned to see the girl and the man standing just beyond the sidewalk and into the alley. "You again?" the man asked, and Tío Juan nodded.

"Yes. Do you feel the beat?" Tío Juan asked him.

The man nodded, as did the girl. "But… I can understand you now," the man said. "You simply babbled before."

"I cannot speak English," Tío Juan explained. "But here… we can understand each other. The garden is singing to us."

"Singing?" queried the girl. "But why to us?"

"Well, everyone here has planted something," the man replied. "Except for the boy there." He pointed at Gonzalo.

"Well… Mama gave me a packet too. She wanted me to garden with Tío Juan, and gave me some pea seeds, and I planted them. Over there." Gonzalo said sheepishly, motioning towards a small patch of dirt about fifteen feet away.

Tío Juan patted his shoulder. "Don't be ashamed of yourself.. Gardening is not a harmful thing."

There was a moment of silence before the girl asked, "What does this have to do with anything? Why are we here? How in Saigon are the plants _singing_ to us, and what does it mean?"

Tío Juan spoke slowly, making sure to get the words right. "I experienced something like this once before," he began. "When gardens really mean something to someone, it comes alive. And you," here he pointed to the girl, "started it all. You care so much about your little beans that you started a spark. When I can feel a spark, the magic comes to me. I don't know how."

The girl gasped a bit, staring down at the beans she had planted for her father. "I hope I made you proud, papa," she whispered.

The man dressed in janitorial clothing clapped his hand over his mouth. "Nellie," he muttered to himself. "She wasn't kidding. Huh. How 'bout that?"

Gonzalo looked at the man. "Who's Nellie?" he asked, a little rudely. He immediately lowered his eyes in embarrassment, but the man replied.

"My wife," the man said. "She… she always said gardens were alive." He snorted softly. "I guess I never really, fully got what she had meant. She said that when she was a kid, she'd hold this locket of hers and she could hear nature playing a tune, or see them twirling to a ballet."

Quite suddenly, an unfamiliar voice came from behind the little Vietnamese girl, who was standing on the edge of the garden. "Wait. A locket?" It was a boy about the girl's age. He looked to be from the southern half of the Equator, with dark skin, eyes, and hair. His eyes were wide with surprise.

"Yeah," the man said gruffly, blinking quickly to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill. "This little old thing with a picture of her as a kid. She loved that locket. It was her good luck charm, she used to say. But when our boy… well, let's just say that Nellie threw her locket out the window and never looked back. Haven't seen it since."

The boy reached into his back pocket and carefully drew out a small pendant connected to a thin chain and popped open the clasp. He carefully walked forward, side stepping the plants, and placed it into the man's hands. "I found this, back when my father and I started our tiny gardening area. Is this her?" he asked.

The man took the locket and examined it. "That's her," he said softly. Tio Juan glanced at the photo within. The girl was young and freckled and her grin had two missing teeth in the front. She was wearing formal attire, yet was one of the happiest people Tio Juan had ever seen. The man closed the locket and looked up, grateful. "Thank you, boy," he said. "What is your name?"

"Virgil," the boy replied.

"I am Wendell," the man replied. So that was his name. Wendell.

"Kim," the Vietnamese girl said quietly.

"Gonzalo, the one and only!" Gonzalo said, then burst into laughter and apologized.

"Juan," Tío Juan added, "And this is my magical dirt."

EPILOGUE:

Many times after the encounter, Tío Juan would wonder. About how the garden had suddenly granted them those things. Why the people who that had been there had been there. About Kim and Virgil and Wendell and Nellie. But he did know that every time he visited the garden, he could communicate with others. He knew that he and Gonzalo had a friendly relationship. He knew that the garden of magical dirt had grown to include many gardeners, including a shy Korean woman named Sae Young, a pregnant girl called Maricela, an old man named Sam. An African American woman called Leona, two young lovers that went by Curtis and Lateesha. An elderly English woman nurse named Nora and her patient, Mr. Myles. An Indian man named Amir. Andrea. The woman who had accidentally dug up Kim's seeds, Ana, stopped by often. She came by, usually with a woman named Florence. They were a community now.

And Tío Juan, who had originally been an outcast from even his own family, was in the center of it all.

 **Well, we hope you guys liked it! This was a school project, so we decided 'why not?' and published this! There will most likely not be a sequel, but we love reviews! ~17headlines and panicatthediscos**


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